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1. Hitmen G Chris Driedger — Dynamite, yet again, causing the Rebels a ton of frustration. Made the save of the game midway through the third period...

RED DEER — Through his tenure as a coach in the National Hockey League and Western Hockey League, Brent Sutter has developed a strong reputation for defensively sound teams.

Of course, absolutely nothing has changed during the 2013 Western Hockey League playoffs where his Red Deer Rebels produced such an effort in Monday’s Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinal against the Calgary Hitmen.

And as for his club’s offensive side? Well, Chris Driedger has been standing in the way of that.

But with a booming slapshot 6:33 into overtime from Red Deer defender and native Calgarian Mathew Dumba (as Hitmen defenceman Spencer Humphries sat in the penalty box), the Rebels managed to avoid heading to the brink of elimination with a 2-1 overtime win at the Enmax Centrium.

“We’re still up 2-1 in the series,” reminded Driedger, who was Calgary’s undisputed MVP facing 38 Rebels attempts in regulation and another six in overtime. “It’s not the end of the world. Yeah, we lost one game, but we need four wins. We can still do that (Tuesday).

“It’s obviously not a happy room. But we’ve just gotta work harder. That’s all it is. We got out-worked for basically the last two periods and an overtime period. We’re definitely not going to come to the rink (Tuesday) and do the same thing.”

As Driedger pointed out, the latter half of the game was an energetic one for the hosts — especially the combination of Red Deer’s top line of Rhyse Dieno, Turner Elson, and Brooks Maxwell — which threw everything they could at the Hitmen goalie.

But it was Humphries, unfortunately, who wore the goat’s horns when he clipped Dieno in the face-area and was tagged for high-sticking.

Red Deer’s power-play unit — riding a lowly 0-for-11 stretch this series heading into the overtime frame — picked the right time to connect and Dumba made no mistake.

The call in overtime brought back memories of controversy from Game 2 which had Sutter fuming over a hit from Red Deer’s Matt Bellerive on Calgary’s Pavlo Padakin in the second period. Padakin, who was replaced by rookie Chase Lang on Monday, suffered a knee injury on the play and is out for four-to-six weeks. The WHL came down on the Rebels on Monday morning and delivered Bellerive a two-game suspension following the incident.

And like any brother, Hitmen defenceman Jaynen Rissling quickly came to the defence of Humphries.

“Honestly, I don’t think that was his fault,” Rissling said. “The guy he high-sticked went down a couple times earlier in the game. Pretty soft. Especially just in overtime with a call like that.

“It’s a hard call to make. But, again, we never should have been in that position if we were playing hard. Props to Chris for keeping us in it for that long.”Actually the Hitmen should be buying Driedger breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the next few weeks after Monday’s performance.

Perhaps his best work came in the third period after a Greg Chase high-sticking penalty when he spotted Dieno circling around his net, timing it perfectly to make an unreal pad-save.

Immediately after, the rebound flew out in the dangerous slot area to Brooks Maxwell who was winding up to unleash another attempt. Luckily, Rissling was right there to block the shot.

“I thought (Driedger) played fantastic for us,” said Hitmen head coach Mike Williamson, whose club authored 4-2 and 2-1 wins last week to open the series at the Scotiabank Saddledome. “We were moving and skating and creating chances in the first. The second, we relied on him. They out-chanced us and I thought out-worked us. Driegs made save after save for us to stay in the game . . . unfortunately, we couldn’t get one on the other end.”

The guy at the opposite end of Driedger — WHL Eastern Conference goalie of the year Patrik Bartosak — deserved a pat on the back, too, with a 38-save effort.

The only goal he let by was a point-shot from Peter Kosterman when the game was just over seven minutes old.

Meanwhile, Driedger had been hung out to dry on a short-handed breakaway when Hitmen defenceman Alex Roach coughed up the puck at the blueline. Maxwell went glove-side on the freebie.

Rissling pointed out their performance in Game 3 of their first-round series against the Swift Current Broncos. That night, they lost 3-2 in OT and rebounded to win 1-0 in OT the following night.

“It’s a lesson we’ve learned before,” he said. “Having that experience is going to play a big role going into (Tuesday). With our effort from (Monday), we’re all pretty anxious to get back on the ice and prove ourselves. There’s going to be no easy nights. Especially in Swift, their crowd was really into it just like here in Red Deer.

“The home team always gets behind them and gives them a little boost. We have to find a way to counter-balance that.”

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